Challenges in Archiving and Sharing Video Data: Considering Moral, Pragmatic, and Substantial Arguments

摘要

Social science researchers are facing new challenges in data archiving and sharing. The challenges encountered for video data are different from those encountered for other types of qualitative data. I will consider these challenges with respect to the moral, pragmatic, and substantial arguments with which funding bodies justify data archiving and sharing. Throughout the article, I will draw on a recent Economic and Social Research Council funded project, “Transient Teams in the Operating Theatre,” in which our research team video recorded work activities in the operating theatre of a UK hospital, thereby dealing with highly sensitive footage. I will consider how video data, on most occasions, cannot be archived for re-use by the wider research community, but how new avenues could be developed so as to benefit from further research on such “unarchivable” datasets.